Chapter Text
Heomu III (Jeoseung, "The Demon Realm")
4th Day After Iridescence
Everything is so cold.
The demon called Jelly doesn't even have the strength to cry like he always did, so hungrily does the cold sap the strength from his bones as he crawls. His eyes track the ground, his field of view occupied with the catatonic bodies of his fellow demons - the weaker ones, the ones that needed to be closer to Gwi-Ma's flame. There's no point looking anywhere else; the sky dark as ever, the lands as barren.
He can feel that he will soon join them.
Why? The thought rings out in his mind once again. He recalls Gwi-Ma's promises all those milennia ago, back when the sun still shone even as it died - promises to stave off the dark and cold, promises to keep their world alight no matter the cost.
Now, he sees them for the lies they were.
But lies though they might've been, the cold gnaws at Jelly's bones all the same. The iridescent Honmoon walls them in all the same, cuts them off from the only source of life left on their dead world. The oil mines of the old demon city-states are dry, their atomic piles cold, the heat at the center of the world all bled out into the empty sky long ago - and now, even the souls are gone too.
How could it have come to this?
And yet, somehow, Jelly continues to trudge across the barren plains.
Why? He asks himself, now. Better to just collapse here and let the night take him, rather than suffer for longer.
But somehow he just... can't.
I haven't heard Gwi-Ma's voice since the Honmoon sealed.
Step.
Step.
Step.
He musters the strength to raise his eyes to the sky. The glowing tendrils of the Honmoon barrier split the sky, fiery and iridescent like never before.
On a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turns his focus inwards and tries to shift - that subtle slipping between the folds of the universe that they're all so familiar with.
By some miracle, the Honmoon lets him through.
Sol III (Earth)
25 November 2025, Terrestrial Gregorian
It's one of those days again.
Ryu Rumi stands perched at the top of the HUNTR/X Tower, huddled into a ball as the soft snow patters down around her. Her huddle is only half for the cold; she needs to keep herself from lashing out again. She surveys the city below from the edge of the tower like a gargoyle, still as stone.
It's been six months since the Idol Awards, and the events of Namsan Tower, and yet she still hasn't moved on. Six months since those demon simulacra of Mira and Zoey ripped her sleeves off, exposing her demon patterns to the world. Six months since the girls they imitated raised their weapons against her. Six months since they betrayed me.
Six months of peace.
Because now that they'd sealed the Honmoon, the war was over. For the first time in her life, for the first time in any of their lives, for the first time in the lives of countless generations of huntresses before them... the war was over.
But who am I without that war?
She'd trained all her life to fight demons - demons like you. Her first memories are of learning to mold her voice, her body, her very being, into a weapon - because that's all you deserve to be.
She doesn't know what to do with the peace.
She can feel the panic coming back. So she takes a deep breath, lets the daggers of cold in the winter air rake the inside of her throat, and focuses on the city below. She traces the lines of the Iridescent Honmoon as they wrap around the surfaces of buildings, tracks the tiny specks of walking people-
"Rumi?"
It's Zoey.
She's back at that night again.
Tension. Fight-flight freeze responses. Muscles coiling. Split-second instincts kicking in. Animal brain ready to bolt, hide, kill-
But she stifles them, like she's stifled her problems before.
"Hey, Zo..."
She stays motionless, gaze locked forwards on the city. The crunch of Zoey's footsteps on snow echoes across the top of the tower as she approaches. The crunching footsteps give way to sliding and crushing as Zoey takes a seat beside her. She doesn't look.
"I brought you a jacket, you must be freezing..."
Sigh. "Thanks." Rumi feels the jacket rest upon her shoulders. As she begins to warm, she has to admit to herself that she is freezing - but the sharpness of the cold keeps her from slipping again.
The two girls sit in the snow-silence for what feels like hours.
"You wanna talk about it?" Zoey finally pipes up.
More silence.
"It's like I'm back there again. That night." She can see soft orange light reflecting off the snowflakes wafting by her face as the jagged patterns on her skin start to glow.
Rumi feels a hand around her left shoulder, then the warm softness of Zoey's body press into her right side. She instinctively flinches away from the contact, but relents as Zoey holds her. Little shifts in Zoey's posture ripple into her - she's struggling for words, too.
Then Zoey's face meets her shoulder.
"I'm not leaving you again," Zoey says, voice muffled by Rumi's jacket.
Alpha Centauri B III (Olympia)
9 August 2268, Extrasolar Gregorian
Olympian Defense Forces
Office of Joint Command
790329 Di Gleria Way
Hadley, CA T342-329
DAJC-CO
6 August 2268 Gregorian
7 Unember 226 Olympian
CLASSIFIED EYES ONLY —— DO NOT RETRANSMIT
MESSAGE FOR
COMMANDING OFFICER, ODFS PERICLES MRF-10
SUBJECT: Operation Orders for Imminent Classified Investigation of Sol System
As of 20 Primuary 226, the Office of Joint Command (henceforth the "OJC") has received credible information that suggests that the present inaccessible state of the Sol system after the Loss may have changed.
A scientific expedition has been authorized and is being prepared aboard the light freighter MSO Christopher Columbus. Due to the uncertainties involved in reestablishing contact with Sol, and the potential for achieving or denying overwhelming support in both current and future conflicts, the existence, purpose, and details of this expedition are to be kept classified.
By direct order of the OJC, the ODFS Pericles is to escort this expedition to Lalande 21185, where it will conduct investigations of the Sol system. Maintain escort over the expedition until it returns to Olympia, at which point normal operations under the command of the ODF-SA will resume.
For clarification, contact the OJC at record locator JC197-1364.
FOR THE OFFICE OF JOINT COMMAND:
encrypted signature corrupted
BERNARD REINHARDT
Admiral, ODFSA, Olympia
Deputy Commander
82 Eridani (Estación Lassonde)
14 August 2268, Extrasolar Gregorian
BEEP.
Francisca Iglesias grits her teeth at the characteristic buzz of her card declining. She's been hearing a lot more of that lately.
"Fine. Take the sandwich off, only need the kick anyhow."
This time, the chime is cheerier. She swipes the coffee bulb after a few moments and lightly tosses herself towards a seat, drifting neatly into place in the zero-gee. She looks out into the station's hallway as she begins to sip from the bulb, grizzled lips parting to let the brown substance in. It's a mockery of its label, somehow both scalding and stale, but its bitter tang sends a shiver down her throat as the caffeine enters her system.
She sighs, long and tired, blowing a thin and greying strand of hair out of her face. At least I won't have to hear that damned buzzing again after I sell the Wayfaring Stranger. Shame it had to end like this. Flashes of memory flit through her head - the soft rumble of the Stranger's engine filling the silence of her cabin during a burn, the raucous laughter of her old crew, the painstaking hours of poring over manifests and double-checking cargo ladings, the knot of horror in her chest as she watched the emissions of nuclear fire blossom from the surface of Schwarzvaal.
It had all been downhill since that damned shipment to Schwarzvaal. They'd run back to Altiplano to tell them what the Garibaldi had done, mourned for the tens of thousands dead - and more still suffering in the rippling collapse of infrastructure. But the cold calculus of interstellar trade turned that tragedy into a stab in the chest, with no buyers for their cargoes and months of schedules turned upside down. Then it was the growing protectionism after Olympia absorbed the Rump Nations Fédérée, cutting their margins with taxes and tariffs. Then the Twelve Hour War on Alpha Mensae.
And now the Saladin War.
Francisca only half-registers the creak of the door opening. The muffled thumps of hands on railings follow. Two people.
Rising tensions had finally boiled over into a general war, sweeping most of known space. All three major powers fighting. Blockades and patrols and convoy raids... there was hardly anywhere safe to go for a small, lone-wolf freighter like the Stranger.
The chatter of the two newcomers at the counter wafts into Francisca's ears, and she finally turns to give them a glance. Their backs are turned to her, but she can tell they're astonishingly smartly dressed; pressed suits and creased pants standing out amongst the crowd of casual wear and bright-colored work jumpsuits like her own.
Too smartly dressed.
She squints her eyes, the wrinkles in their corners deepening. That posture, those movements, the practiced poise of their voices.
One of them turns, and the pin on his lapel is unmistakeable.
"I told you assholes to leave me alone!" Francisca shouts, flinging her grizzled frame from her seat with astonishing swiftness and barrelling into one of the newcomers. He yelps, tumbling sideways over the counter and into the far wall. She grabs his collar as they ricochet off the wall and the now-closed door, adjusting his orientation to cleanly upside-down as they drift into the rest of the restaurant.
The room falls silent.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want any trouble!" the other newcomer calls out, a sliver of desperation slipping through in his voice.
Francisca turns to meet his eyes, then flicks a hand out to point at the pin. "Then you agents shouldn't have come here. I'm not taking deals from the Casa de Comercios." She spits the title out like a moldy ration bar. "You want to run guns for your little war, find someone else."
The man she's holding immediately begins to protest, "We said nothing about shipping weapons-!"
"Easy, kid," the other agent cuts in. "You'll only make it worse."
He pushes off the nearby handrail, drifting closer before catching himself on a chair. "The name's Michelo Marco. You need no introduction, nor do I wish to push your terms; that much is clear. I've got a very different deal for you."
Francisca continues to stare daggers at him. "Make it fast. My coffee's getting cold."
Michelo dares to slide a little closer, leaning in. "You'll be carrying a scientific mission to Sol."
Francisca's eyes widen for a moment, dagger-stares giving way to something more like a deer in the headlights.
But then they narrow again.
"Do you think I'm stupid? Nothing's come back from Sol since before I was born. No science team in their right mind is going on a damn suicide mission."
"Well, see, that's just it." Michelo produces a tablet, showing her an utterly inscrutable graph of what seems to be scientific data.
Francisca squints. "The hell is this?"
"The evidence. That there might be something worth investigating. Economic Intelligence intercepted it on Olympia, fed it back to Altiplano on a secure courier at best speed; I'll admit I don't quite grasp the details, but if Econ-Intel was that intent on getting it home…"
"Hmm." She relaxes her grip on the first agent ever so slightly.
"You'll be running alone, like you prefer. No naval involvement. Pick your own route, we're not on a tight clock. And it's like you said - Earth's been gone for over fifty years. Odds are, all you have to do is run them to UV Ceti, drop three probes in, and come back. Piece of cake."
"What's the pay?"
Michelo draws the tablet back for a moment and flips through a few applications before turning it back to face her.
"Madre de Dios." A considering pause. "That's enough to retire without even selling the Stranger..." Her eyes narrow again. "How the hell did you get Altiplano to cough up that much?"
"Open markets in the war are proving unexpectedly profitable."
Her eyes stay narrowed. "I'll need to think this over."
"Take your time. The science team doesn't arrive for at least a week, more if there's any delays. They're piggybacking on the Commandante Hart when she rotates over."
"Can you let go of me now?" the other agent sheepishly asks, all pretense of poise gone.
Francisca sighs. Her hand unclenches, and she pokes the man's shoulder, sending him slowly floating towards the door. "God damnit. Fine. No promises."
Michelo gives a gruff nod. "That's better than I'd hoped for. Now, if you wouldn't mind, we'd like to get back to our order."
Francisca wordlessly grasps the handrail and slides herself back to her seat, possibilities swirling in her head.